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THE HERMIT AND THE WILD WOMAN
At the mention of Mrs. Mornway’s name a silence fell
between the two men and the Governor moved uneasily in
his chair.
“You are not advising me to chuck Fleetwood because
the ‘Spy’ is going to accuse me of having sold him his fi rst appointment?” he said at length.
Shackwell drew a deep breath. “You say yourself that
Mrs. Mornway gave you the same advice this afternoon.”
“Well, what of that? Do you imagine that my wife distrib –”
The Governor broke off with an exasperated laugh.
Shackwell, leaning against the mantelpiece, looked down
into the embers. “I didn’t say the ‘Spy’ meant to accuse you of
having sold the offi ce.”
Mornway stood up slowly, his eyes on his friend’s averted
face. The ashes dropped from his cigar, scattering a white trail
across the carpet which had excited Mrs. Nimick’s envy.
“The offi ce is in my gift. If I didn’t sell it, who did?”
he demanded.
Shackwell laid a hand on his arm. “For heaven’s sake,
John –”
“Who did, who did?” the Governor violently repeated.
The two men faced each other in the closely curtained silence of the dim luxurious room. Shackwell’s eyes again wandered, as if summoning the walls to reply. Then he said, “I have
positive information that the ‘Spy’ will say nothing if you don’t
appoint Fleetwood.”
“And what will it say if I do appoint him?”
“That he bought his fi rst appointment from your wife.”
221
EDITH WHARTON
The Governor stood silent, immovable, while the blood
crept slowly from his strong neck to his lowering brows.
Once he laughed, then he set his lips and continued to gaze
into the fi re. After a while he looked at his cigar and shook
the freshly formed cone of ashes carefully upon the hearth.
He had just turned again to Shackwell when the door opened
and the butler announced: “Mr. Fleetwood.”
The room swam about Shackwell, and when he recovered
himself, Mornway, with outstretched hand, was advancing
quietly to meet his guest.
Fleetwood was a smaller man than the Governor. He was
erect and compact, with a face full of dry energy, which
seemed to press forward with the spring of his prominent features, as though it were the weapon with which he cleared his
way through the world. He was in evening dress, scrupulously
appointed, but pale and nervous. Of the two men, it was Mornway who was the more composed.
“I thought I should have seen you before this,” he said.
Fleetwood returned his grasp and shook hands with
Shackwell.
“I knew you needed to be let alone. I didn’t mean to come
to-night, but I wanted to say a word to you.”
At this, Shackwell, who had fallen into the background,
made a motion of leave-taking, but the Governor arrested it.
“We haven’t any secrets from Hadley, have we, Fleetwood?”
“Certainly not. I am glad to have him stay. I have simply
come to say that I have been thinking over my future arrangements, and that I fi nd it will not be possible for me to continue in offi ce.”
222
THE HERMIT AND THE WILD WOMAN
There was a long pause, during which Shackwell kept his
eyes on Mornway. The Governor had turned pale, but when
he spoke his voice was full and fi rm.
“This is sudden,” he said.
Fleetwood stood leaning against a high chair-back, fretting
its carved ornaments with restless fi ngers. “It is sudden – yes.
I – there are a variety of reasons.”
“Is one of them the fact that you are afraid of what the ‘Spy’
is going to say?”
The Attorney-General fl ushed deeply and moved away
a few steps. “I’m sick of mud-throwing,” he muttered.
“George Fleetwood!” Mornway exclaimed. He had advanced toward his friend, and the two stood confronting each
other, already oblivious of Shackwell’s presence.
“It’s not only that, of course. I’ve been frightfully hardworked. My health has given way –”
“Since yesterday?”
Fleetwood forced a smile. “My dear fellow, what a slavedriver you are! Hasn’t a man the right to take a rest?”
“Not a soldier on the eve of battle. You have never failed
me before.”
“I don’t want to fail you now. But it isn’t the eve of battle – you’re in, and that’s the main thing.”
“The main thing at present is that you promised to stay in
with me, and that I must have your real reason for breaking
your word.”
Fleetwood made a deprecatory movement. “My dear
Governor, if you only knew it, I’m doing you a service in
backing out.”
223
EDITH WHARTON
“A service – why?”
“Because I’m hated – because the Lead Trust wants my
blood, and will have yours too if you appoint me.”
“Ah, that’s the real reason, then – you’re afraid of the ‘Spy’?”
“Afraid –?”
The Governor continued to speak with dry deliberation.
“Evidently, then, you know what they mean to say.”
Fleetwood laughed. “One needn’t do that to be sure it will
be abominable!”
“Who cares how abominable it is if it isn’t true?”
Fleetwood shrugged his shoulders and was silent. Shackwell, from a distant seat, uttered a faint protesting sound, but
no one heeded him. The Governor stood squarely before Fleetwood, his hands in his pockets. “It is true, then?” he demanded.
“What is true?”
“What the ‘Spy’ means to say – that you bought my wife’s
infl uence to get your fi rst appointment.”
In the silence Shackwell started suddenly to his feet.
A sound of carriage-wheels had disturbed the quiet street.
They paused and then rolled up the semicircle to the door of
the Executive Mansion.
“John!” Shackwell warned him.
The Governor turned impatiently; there was the sound of
a servant’s steps in the hall, followed by the opening and closing of the outer door.
“Your wife – Mrs. Mornway!” Shackwell cried.
Another step, accompanied by a soft rustle of skirts, was
advancing toward the library.
“My wife? Let her come!” said the Governor.
224
THE HERMIT AND THE WILD WOMAN
V
She stood before them in her bright evening dress, with
an arrested brilliancy of aspect like the sparkle of a fountain
suddenly caught in ice. Her look moved rapidly from one to
the other; then she came forward, while Shackwell slipped behind her to close the door.
“What has happened?” she said.
Shackwell began to speak, but the Governor interposed
calmly:
“Fleetwood has come to tell me that he does not wish to
remain in offi ce.”
“Ah!” she murmured.
There was another silence. Fleetwood broke it by saying:
“It is getting late. If you want to see me to-morrow –”
The Governor looked from his face to Ella’s. “Yes; go now,”
he said.
Shackwell moved in Fleetwood’s wake to the door. Mrs.
Mornway stood with her head high, smiling slightly. She shook
hands with each of the men in turn; then she moved toward
the sofa and laid aside her shining cloak. All her gestures were
calm and noble, but as she raised her hand to unclasp the cloak
her husband uttered a sudden exclamation.
“Where did you get that bracelet? I don’t remember it.”
“This?” She looked at him with astonishment. “It belonged to my mother. I don’t often wear it.”
“Ah – I shall suspect everything now,” he groaned.
225
EDITH WHARTON
He turned away and fl ung himself with bowed head in
the chair behind his writing-table. He wanted to collect himself, to question her, to get to the bottom of the hideous abyss
over which his imagination hung. But what was the use? What
did the facts matter? He had only to put his memories together – they led him straight to the truth. Every incident of
the day seemed to point a leering fi nger in the same direction, from Mrs. Nimick’s allusion to the imported damask curtains to Gregg’s confi dent appeal for rehabilitation.
“If you imagine that my wife distributes patronage –” he
heard himself repeating inanely, and the walls seemed to reverberate with the laughter which his sister and Gregg had
suppressed. He heard Ella rise from the sofa and lifted his
head sharply.
“Sit still!” he commanded. She sank back without speaking,
and he hid his face again. The past months, the past years, were
dancing a witches’ dance about him. He remembered a hun-
dred signifi cant things.... Oh, God, he cried to himself, if only she
does not lie about it! Suddenly he recalled having pitied Mrs.
Nimick because she could not penetrate to the essence of his
happiness. Those were the very words he had used! He heard
himself laugh aloud. The clock struck – it went on striking
interminably. At length he heard his wife rise again and say
with sudden authority: “John, you must speak.”
Authority – she spoke to him with authority! He laughed
again, and through his laugh he heard the senseless rattle of the words, “If you imagine that my wife distributes
patronage ...”
226
THE HERMIT AND THE WILD WOMAN
He looked up haggardly and saw her standing before
him. If only she would not lie about it! He said: “You see what
has happened.”
“I suppose some one has told you about the ‘Spy.’“
“Who told you? Gregg?” he interposed.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“That was why you wanted –?”
“Why I wanted you to help him? Yes.”
“Oh, God! ... He wouldn’t take money?”
“No, he wouldn’t take money.”
He sat silent, looking at her, noting with a morbid minuteness the exquisite fi nish of her dress, that fi nish which seemed
so much a part of herself that it had never before struck him as
a merely purchasable accessory. He knew so little what a woman’s dresses cost! For a moment he lost himself in vague calculations; fi nally, he said: “What did you do it for?”
“Do what?”
“Take money from Fleetwood.”
She paused a moment and then said: “If you will let me
explain –”
And then he saw that, all along, he had thought she would
be able to disprove it! A smothering blackness closed in on
him, and he had a physical struggle for breath. Then he forced
himself to his feet and said: “He was your lover?”
“Oh, no, no, no!” she cried with conviction. He hardly
knew whether the shadow lifted or deepened; the fact that he
instantly believed her seemed only to increase his bewilderment. Presently he found that she was still speaking, and he
227
EDITH WHARTON
began to listen to her, catching a phrase now and then through
the deafening clamor of his thoughts.
It amounted to this – that just after her husband’s fi rst election, when Fleetwood’s claims for the Attorney-Generalship
were being vainly pressed by a group of his political backers,
Mrs. Mornway had chanced to sit next to him once or twice at
dinner. One day, on the strength of these meetings, he had
called and asked her frankly if she would not help him with
her husband. He had made a clean breast of his past, but had
said that, under a man like Mornway, he felt he could wipe out
his political sins and purify himself while he served the party. She knew the party needed his brains, and she believed in
him – she was sure he would keep his word. She would have
spoken in his favor in any case – she would have used all her
infl uence to overcome her husband’s prejudice – and it was
by a mere accident that, in the course of one of their talks,
he happened to give her a “tip” (his past connections were
still useful for such purposes), a “tip” which, in the fi rst invading pressure of debt after Mornway’s election, she had not
had the courage to refuse. Fleetwood had made some money
for her – yes, about thirty thousand dollars. She had repaid
what he had lent her, and there had been no further transactions of the kind between them. But it appeared that Gregg,
before his dismissal, had got hold of an old check-book which
gave a hint of the story, and had pieced the rest together with
the help of a clerk in Fleetwood’s offi ce. The “Spy” was in possession of the facts, but did not mean to use them if Fleetwood was not reappointed, the Lead Trust having no personal
grudge against Mornway.
228
THE HERMIT AND THE WILD WOMAN
Her story ended there, and she sat silent while he continued to look at her. So much had perished in the wreck of
his faith that he did not attach much value to what remained.
It scarcely mattered that he believed her when the truth was
so sordid. There had been, after all, nothing to envy him for
but what Mrs. Nimick had seen; the core of his life was as mean
and miserable as his sister’s....
His wife rose at length, pale but still calm. She had a kind of
external dignity which she wore like one of her rich dresses.
It seemed as little a part of her now as the fi nery of which his
gaze contemptuously reckoned the cost.
“John –” she said, laying her hand on his shoulder.
He looked up wearily. “You had better go to bed,”
he interjected.
“Don’t look at me in that way. I am prepared for your being
angry with me – I made a dreadful mistake and must bear my
punishment: any punishment you choose to infl ict. But you
must think of yourself fi rst – you must spare yourself. Why
should you be so horribly unhappy? Don’t you see that since
Mr. Fleetwood has behaved so well we are quite safe? And
I swear to you I have paid back every penny of the money.”
VI
Three days later Shackwell was summoned by telephone to
the Governor’s offi ce in the Capitol. There had been, in the interval, no communication between the two men, and the papers had been silent or non-committal.
229
EDITH WHARTON
In the lobby Shackwell met Fleetwood leaving
the building. For a moment the Attorney-General seemed
about to speak; then he nodded and passed on, leaving to
Shackwell the impression of a face more than ever thrust
forward like a weapon.
The Governor sat behind his desk in the clear autumn
sunlight. In contrast to Fleetwood he seemed relaxed and unwieldy, and the face he turned to his friend had a gray look of
convalescence. Shackwell wondered, with a start of apprehension, if he and Fleetwood had been together.
He relieved himself of his overcoat without speaking, and
when he turned again toward Mornway he was surprised to
fi nd the latter watching him with a smile.
“It’s good to see you, Hadley,” the Governor said.
“I waited to be sent for; I knew you’d let me know when
you wanted me,” Shackwell replied.
“I didn’t send for you on purpose. If I had, I might have
asked your advice, and I didn’t want to ask anybody’s advice
but my own.” The Governor spoke steadily, but in a voice a trifl e too well disciplined to be natural. “I’ve had a three days’
conference with myself,” he continued, “and now that everything is settled I want you to do me a favor.”
“Yes?” Shackwell assented. The private issues of the affair
were still wrapped in mystery to him, but he had never had
a moment’s doubt as to its public solution, and he had no diffi culty in conjecturing the nature of the service he was to render. His heart ached for Mornway, but he was glad the inevitable step was to be taken without further delay.
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